Category: Family

When “Ma” Sunday Called Them Forward, c.1915

Ma Sunday in Omaha, c. 1915

There are moments in the Sunday campaigns that feel almost hidden in the shadow of Billy’s larger-than-life presence—but when you find them, they reveal something just as powerful.

One such moment came during a women-only meeting led by “Ma” Sunday.

The tabernacle was full—some 6,000 to 7,000 gathered—but this was a different kind of service. No booming theatrics. No sawdust-charged bravado. Instead, there was a quieter, deeply personal appeal.

And when she called them forward, 115 women and girls rose and walked the aisle.

A Different Kind of “Trail-Hitting”

The newspapers called it a “replica” of Billy’s famous trail-hitting—but it wasn’t quite the same.

There was a tenderness to it. And, at first, a bit of confusion.

Many of the women thought they were simply going forward to greet Mrs. Sunday—to shake her hand, to thank her, to meet her. They came quickly, almost instinctively, forming what one observer described as a “bee-line” down the aisle.

It took a firm voice from Mrs. Asher, one of the Sunday team, to steady the moment:

This is not a reception line. This is for those who want to be saved.

And just like that, the tone shifted.

Faces in the Crowd

The reports linger on the people—and that’s where the story lives.

A housemaid, still in her work attire, came forward and clasped Mrs. Sunday’s hand, covering it with kisses.

A weeping mother walked the aisle with her small son, alongside her grown daughter.

Two young girls, barely ten years old, came arm in arm.

High school girls stepped forward carrying their school pennants.

Even the choir—singing hymn after hymn—was visibly moved, some of them weeping as they sang.

This wasn’t spectacle. It was personal, family-bound, deeply human.

Her Message: Personal Service

If Billy Sunday’s sermons often thundered, Ma Sunday’s message pressed inward.

She didn’t just call women to come forward—she called them to act.

  • Make a prayer list.
  • Win at least one person to Christ.
  • Take responsibility for the spiritual lives around you.

Her appeal was practical, almost methodical—but never cold. It was rooted in experience, shaped by her own life, and delivered with a kind of plainspoken honesty.

At one point, she reflected on her upbringing—rigid, formal, spiritually lifeless—and contrasted it with her determination to move forward anyway:

I was going to bust.

It’s the kind of line that doesn’t sound polished—but it lands.

Tears—and Resolve

Perhaps the most telling moment came when she addressed women with unsaved husbands and children.

Many of them broke down.

The article notes they wept bitterly.

This wasn’t abstract theology. This was eternity pressing into the home.

And Ma Sunday didn’t leave it there. She pointed them toward action, toward prayer, toward persistence.

She even set her sights on the next gathering—calling for a packed house of mothers and grandmothers, marked by a simple white flower.

The Broader Picture

What we see here is something easy to miss if we focus only on Billy:

The Sunday campaigns were not a one-man operation.

They were a network of voices, and Ma Sunday’s was essential—especially among women. Her meetings didn’t mirror Billy’s so much as complement them.

Where he confronted, she invited.
Where he thundered, she persuaded.
Where he called for decision, she called for ongoing service.

And in doing so, she mobilized an entire segment of the revival that might otherwise have remained on the margins.

Final Reflection

In the end, the numbers—115 responding—tell only part of the story.

What matters more is what those women carried home with them:

  • A renewed sense of responsibility
  • A burden for their families
  • A call to personal witness

Ma Sunday didn’t just ask them to walk an aisle.

She asked them to live differently when they walked back out.

And for many of them, that’s where the real revival began.

Source: The Omaha Daily Bee, Sept 20, 1915:1

‘MA’ DOES MUCH TO HELP ‘PA’ IN HIS LABOR

Mrs. William A. Sunday always denies the statement so often and so lovingly made by her son, George, also of the party, that she is the ‘boss’ of the Sunday campaign, but that doesn’t do away with the fact that it was largely through her efforts that the wonderful system of the Sunday’s has been developed.

Along with her many charming feminine qualities Mrs. Sunday is a woman of unusual executive ability, and her keen ability to see the needs and apply the remedies required in work of this kind has made possible the plans whereby the campaigns are made so effective.

‘Do you not relieve Mr. Sunday many tasks, of seeing people, of making plans and of deciding questions concerning the work,’ Mrs. Sunday was asked.

‘Oh, Yes, we all give him as much help as we can, but in the last analysis it is ‘papa’ who decides, and we, of course, do all that I can in this line.’

It has even been said by people who ought to know that Mrs. Sunday frequently suggests phrases for some of his sermons, and also the subjects. This is what she says about that:

‘When I go around with ‘papa’ I don’t just sit and look about, but I think and plan. I frequently see things which might be of use to ‘papa’ and I tell him about them. He is always welcome to all that I have to give him, to every suggestion I can make.’

Besides the work which Mr. and Mrs. Sunday are doing and which they both consider ‘God’s work,’ the nearest thing to Mrs. Sunday’s heart is her home. Her children are very dear to her. By reason of campaigns held in cities far from their home in Winona Lake, Mr. and Mrs. Sunday see little of their children during the nine months when they are doing evangelistic work.

‘I make it a point to go back home two or three days at a time, just to be where we are at home,’ Mrs. Sunday declares. ‘One of my greatest sorrows is the fact that my boys must grow up without the direct influence of Mr. Sunday and myself.’

‘Do you ever feel unhappy about leaving home to begin a new campaign,’ Mrs. Sunday was asked.

‘Yes, we both feel that way sometimes, but the thought that this is the greatest work which we could be given to do, helps us. For several days before we leave home, however, Mr. Sunday is completely broken up, and frequently is unable to eat.’

The Sundays do not grudge the sacrifice that they give, but instead they enter into the work with vim and with an intense desire to ‘live up to what God expects them to do,’ as they express it.

Paul, the eight year old son of the Sundays, who broke an ankle while playing football in the autumn, has recovered and is back at school and back too at his favorite sports.

In a very different way, Mrs. Sunday has just as great getting powers as her husband and when she addresses a group of women her sincere manner, her definite message and her wide-awake methods win the immediate attention of her audience.

‘Ma’ has her trail hitters too, and when she extends the invitation to the women to accept Christ and to lead Christian lives many are eager to shake her hand and to promise better living in the future.

It is an interesting life that Mr. and Mrs. Sunday have led ever since they were married out in Chicago years ago. For two years after their marriage ‘Billy’ played ball but he finally gave that up to do permanent work in the Y. M. C. A., in which he had been working in the winter months. Soon after that he became assistant for Dr. Wilbur Chapman and upon the retirement of that evangelist from active revival work Mr. Sunday conducted revival services in towns outside of Chicago.

Since then he has been in revival work.

Mrs. Sunday was formerly Miss Helen Thompson, one of four daughters of pioneer Chicago business men. Before her marriage she was interested in the church and was an active worker and since that time she has always assisted Mr. Sunday in God’s work.

Cited from a period 1915 newspaper

Who is Hellen ‘Ma’ Sunday? c. 1909

The following is a biographical sketch of Helen Sunday, wife of Billy Sunday. Part of the 1909 Springfield campaign souvenir.

Mrs. W. A. Sunday

THE biographer who omits to study the wife of his subject certainly will miss the key to his problem of investigation. The world talks of the influence of the mothers upon its men; but it, curiously enough, generally omits appreciation of the strong influence of the wife upon any man; and perhaps more men have been made and unmade by their wives than by their mothers, when heredity is omitted from the matter.

Mrs. William A. Sunday was a girl of great strength of character when she was Miss Helen A. Thompson, the daughter of a Chicago business man. She married a famous baseball player and found herself the wife of one of the greatest of evangelists—and she not only made the revolutionary change with him but is one of the chief causes of William A. Sunday being what he is in the eyes of the world. She was a church worker, a shining exception to the rule of the results of marrying a man to make him better. She upheld the hands of her husband when he was in poverty and the poorly paid worker of the Chicago Y.M.C.A., writing letters declining, for seven times his salary, to return to the baseball field. When William A. Sunday was starting out as an evangelist along entirely new lines of endeavor which merged into In his entirely unprecedented lines of achievement, his wife helped greatly to keep up his courage, keep him along the line he had chosen, and keep him as much as possible free from worries. Mrs. Sunday complements her husband perfectly—they are not at all similar, and she is strongest where he is weakest and weakest where he is strongest. If he had a helpmeet like himself, Mr. Sunday might be plunging into hot water every month and every year. Luckily for him, his wife guides him around and over most obstacles, keeps his fingers out of the fire, and does what Mr. Sunday never thinks of doing—looks after his own interests.

The wedding of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Sunday was not the kind one finds pictured in Paul and Virginia by any manner of means; it was a twentieth-century marriage of two distinct individuals joining as helpmeets, without either submerging a personality in the other—certainly not the old kind of entire submergence of the wife in the husband. They disagree about as many things as other people do, but each knows in what things the other is best informed or strongest, and the one best qualified always decides the question. The result is that they are more free from actual, important disagreements—the kind called love spats or marital troubles—than most people. This is a match of brains as well as of hearts, of sense as well as of souls, and of respect as well as of love.

Mrs. Sunday does what she can in public during a series of meetings conducted by her husband, but the most important thing she does is to keep her husband able to do the great things he accomplishes in every city in which he works. She is a perfect wife for a very remarkable man.

“Ma Sunday” Takes the Pulpit in Kansas City (1916)

During the 1916 revival campaign of Billy Sunday in Kansas City, one of the most striking moments came when the evangelist’s wife, Helen Amelia Thompson Sunday—known widely as “Ma Sunday”—took the pulpit herself.

A report in the The Kansas City Star described her address as unmistakably in the style of her famous husband: energetic, blunt, and deeply challenging to church members.

The newspaper noted that Kansas City audiences had not heard her preach before, but the reaction was immediate. Speaking rapidly and with confidence, she quoted Scripture freely, used expressive gestures, and even thumped the pulpit for emphasis.

By the end of her half-hour address, the reporter observed, “she was perspiring freely,” a familiar description for anyone who had watched Billy Sunday preach.

Her message was aimed squarely at professing Christians, not skeptics or outsiders. She criticized believers whose lives contradicted their testimony.

“The professed Christian who forgets his vows every time a joy ride is offered… is a liar—she said liar—every time testimonials are called for.”

Like her husband, Ma Sunday believed revival depended not only on converting sinners but also on awakening the church. In her view, too many Christians expected evangelists to do the spiritual work while they remained passive.

“Don’t you think that we are going to carry the load and let you sit back and say, ‘I hope you have a good meeting.’”

Instead, she challenged church members to take personal responsibility for the spread of the gospel. Her message emphasized the role of ordinary believers as witnesses for Christ.

She even offered a striking calculation:

“If every church member would win one person to God a year in twenty-five years the world would be saved.”

But she also warned that careless Christian living could damage the church’s influence.

“The church member who proves himself a liar every time he testifies is more harm than good to the church.”

At one point she posed a simple question to the audience: how many people were praying for others? Only a few hands rose. Yet when she asked how many were professed Christians, nearly every hand went up. The contrast, she implied, revealed the problem.

Another theme in her address was the temptation of worldly distractions. She criticized believers who treated recreation as more important than spiritual discipline.

“Lots of Christians forget every time they have a chance to go joy riding.”

Her solution was straightforward: prayer and active participation in the revival effort.

“Get a prayer list… I don’t mean to show around and talk about, but to pray for.”

She also defended the unusual style of her husband’s ministry. Critics often accused Billy Sunday of being theatrical or unconventional. Ma Sunday reminded her listeners that religious leaders throughout the Bible had often acted outside ordinary expectations.

“The Pharisees tried to trip up Jesus for doing things out of the ordinary… Mr. Sunday has lots of authority for doing things out of the ordinary.”

Her address illustrated an important aspect of the Sunday revival campaigns: they were family efforts. While Billy Sunday delivered the dramatic evening sermons, Ma Sunday frequently reinforced the message by speaking directly to believers about prayer, personal responsibility, and spiritual integrity.

In Kansas City that spring of 1916, the newspaper report made one thing clear. The revival was not powered by one voice alone.

Ma Sunday had her own message—and she delivered it with the same urgency and conviction that had made the Sunday campaigns famous across America.

The Kansas City Star. May 9, 1916:4.

Billy Sunday family c. 1902

This image was likely take around 1902 because the oldest boy, George was born in 1892. He looks around 8-9 years old here. The other child must be Billy, Jr., born in 1901. The older woman is Helen’s mother. I colorized the image.

Circa 1890s notebook belonging to Billy

Morgan Library at Grace College has a wonderful artifact that appears to be a notebook with various (mostly) handwritten notes, undoubetdly by Billy himself, that resemble the raw materials and resources Billy used in his earliest ministry days, perhaps as early as the 1890s. It is chalked full with handwritten notes, stats, illustrations, and what appears to be outlines for messages. It is personally inscribed by W.A. Sunday with an address of 64 Throop St. Chicago. The address is interesting because across the street from the home (now gone) is Jefferson Park Church (see Bruns:47).

This Google Earth views shows the site of the previous Park Jefferson Church (8-story red building today). 64 Throop would have been right across today, where a long distribution or warehouse sits today.

Helen ‘Ma’ Sunday liked to paint

Several paintings by Ma Sunday (Billy’s wife) hang in their former home in Winona Lake. Many of her subjects were landscapes and animals.

Permission granted by the Winona Lake History Center.

The value of Helen ‘Ma’ Sunday?

“Winona people are beginning to know something of Mrs Sunday’s gifts and abilities, as they never have before understood them. She works with unusual tact, and gives evidence of thinking every subject through before action is taken. Personally, I appreciate such a counsellor more than I can express. I feel satisfied that her spirit has touched the heart of every Commissioner of the General Assembly; and this has resulted in inspiring their confidence in Winona’s present, and enlarged their vision of the great future this Institution faces.”

Letter from J.C. Breckenridge, General Secretary, Winona Assembly and Bible Conference. May 24, 1921. Addressed to Billy Sunday. Morgan Library. Billy Sunday Archives.